February 7, 2010

This is a music act from 40+ years ago. Imagine if in the first Super Bowl, in 1967, the half-time show featured musicians who peaked in 1927. No. It's not imaginable. The strange dominance of My Generation is unfathomable. I hope I die before I get old. Ah ha ha ha. That was just something we said to throw everyone — even ourselves — off the track. We meant to take our stand and dominate as long as we possibly could.

Smile and grin at the change all around... pick up my guitar and play... just like yesterday....

How terribly, terribly strange. I've loved The Who since I first heard "I Can't Explain" on the radio. I was 14. Loved them so much I joined their fan club before their first album was even released in the United States. I'll always love the 60s Who. Even though I got tired of what they were in the 70s, I'm happy to see them still playing now. Pete Townshend is 65. It's cool that he can rotate his arm all around like that, let alone actually pick up his guitar and play. Just like yesterday. The Who, now a duet, takes the gigantic stage.

Ah! I'm getting old. Why don't we all fade away?

IN THE COMMENTS: TheGiantPeach said:

Actually, in 1967, if they had hit on the concept of half-time entertainment that went beyond marching bands, they could very well have featured Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, who were popular 40 years earlier.

In fact, two of the early Super Bowls to feature performers were tributes to Armstrong and Ellington in the year after their deaths.

I was actually thinking the same thing you were regarding the 1967/1927 reference.I love the Who and feel that it's nearly miraculous that they can still give decent performances of these powerhouse songs at their age.I was hoping that in the name of old age that Pete would have smashed up his guitar but unfortunately that didn't happen.I know for the young crowed that these guys don't mean much but I like to see people over 60 still giving it a go. Kudos for them

There's a cultural borderline that came down somewhere around 1965 that marks what can be used and re-used while still seeming at least somewhat contemporary, and what seems dated and very much from another era. That's why the Who can play a halftime show in 2010 but Elvis Presley (had he lived) probably wouldn't have been able to do so in 1995, even though those are the timeframes we are talking about. I'm convinced it has something to do with the widespread use of color TV footage and electric guitar distortion pedals. (Also, don't forget that the Guitar Hero videogames have given a lot of these old rockers a new lease on life.) Me, I can hardly wait to see Motley Crue do the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show.

Pete & Roger, among all the geezer-rock acts, still come off as the proto-punk youth they were in 1964. Even in a show as tightly choreographed as tonight's they still left me with the notion that had they wanted to, they could have said "screw the program, we're here to rock" and gone off on their own with the crowd behind them. Even at their age they still possess the essential danger, the chance that they may break all the rules and do as they wish with no regard for the consequences. That's why they're still The Who and still a vital rock band.

If you've got any evidence of a "habit" by all means bring it out....Townsend said he visted several websites to study the subject, having been abused as a child....I don't remember thousand os images being recovred or any children coming forward to discuss abuse.

I find ironic that "I hope I die before I get old" is a signature line.

I am saddened that one of my heroes, Entwistle, is dead, from heart failure. The moron...I had atrial fib like he did. I got a surgical procedure to cure mine, John thought it a good idea instead to snort a few lines of cocaine. What a waste!

I thought the Who sounded much better than the Stones did at their Super Bowl.

What really annoys me about the Who was the constant hype, and all the stories about Townsend's latest plan to get off heroin. Who cares?

P.S. This is very OT, but it looks like I've been banned from volokh.com and had the comments I left there deleted. The culprit is probably Orin Kerr. And, on an ironic note, it was because I left a comment on a post about them moderating comments. In that comment, I didn't link to my own site but to a previous comment I'd left at their site, also on a thread about moderating comments. The second comment (which was deleted also) said this:

--------Orin Kerr is falsely giving the impression that he only deletes "uncivil" comments. Now, see this: volokh.com/posts/1233874107.shtml

--------All Kerr did was post a cheap, sub-Leno joke about an Obama appointee. I posted a comment about how that appointee wasn't right for the job, linking to this page or one of the posts on that page.

Which is his right. So, if you want cheap jokes that not even the worse stand-up in the U.S. would dare utter, come to this site. If you want to find out why an appointee isn't qualified you should look elsewhere.

There's a cultural borderline that came down somewhere around 1965 that marks what can be used and re-used while still seeming at least somewhat contemporary

Nonsense. The Boomers are where the money is (what little of it is left). The only reason it's the Who and not Chuck Berry is that the gang at Black Rock (who undoubtedly have a voice in the choice of halftime entertainment) are well to the Left and, as has been the case since the students were revolting (insert punchline), assume that all the Boomers are just like them.

I think the problem is that there hasn't been a really original innovation in popular music since the 1960s. Teenagers are still listening to Led Zeppelin and the Beatles because music today is really very little different from the music of the 1960s, whereas the music of the 1960s was very different from earlier music. So 1960s music still sounds very good and mainstream to modern ears.

Until someone comes up with a fundamentally new popular music genre that captures the popular imagination like 1960's music did, those 60's acts will continue to have mass appeal.

I don't know why the 1960s was so different, but my best guess is a combination of the introduction of the electic guitar with all it could do and the cultural changes. Maybe someone needs to invent some new musical instrument.

The Who obviously are not what they once were. But the few times I've heard Daltry recently, his voice was completely shot. So I thought they put on a respectable show. They picked tunes Daltry could sing, and played a fair amount of music. It was loose and fun.

Dennis - you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. 14 computers, no porn. It's a shame Scotland Yard thought they would make a big splash with Townshend and then found nothing. All they managed was to damage a man's reputation.

Love the Who. Doesn't match the last concert I saw (with Entwistle) which was the 9.11 concert at MSG. They were on fire that night. Once of those performances so electric that the hair stands up on the back of your neck. I saw it again on video last year and it managed to do it again.

My husband was horrified that they got older and he didn't. (lie) He said that our 24 year old daughter probably looks at Daltry and Townsend and imagines that we are like them. Oh, the horrors of growing old.

Ann - I think "I hope I die before I get old," bothered Townshend when he was turning 30 as every journalist would bring it up. He got over that around 40. I think most boomers did. Suddenly, age was just a number and you are as young as you feel : )

Why is it I can usually accept band personnel changes, even ones set into motion by a death--a death that occurred well over half the band's existence ago--but I've never accepted a post-Moonie Who? This, even though Zak Starkey's drumming was as close to a highlight as the limp show had. And don't even get me started about a post-Entwistle Who...

Best rock geezer Superbowl show ever? Prince (uncomfortable as I am being a decade older than a geezer).

OK, let me get this straigh, there was a thing called the super bowl today?

Srsly, I went shopping with the expectation the game would cause the place to be abandoned. Here's what I learned: generally speaking, Whole Food shoppers are not into football. I asked a few people I met if the game was over already and nobody knew.

Back in the '70s and '80s, there were actors and entertainers who would show up on variety shows (look it up in wikipedia you punks!) and the Tonight Show and "celebrity roasts" who were as much long-preserved fossils then as the Who is today. Jack Benny and Lucille Ball were still showing up on shows forever it seemed. As for musical acts, what about Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, who by then had been going on since the 40s?

I dunno. I remember driving down the road shortly after 9/11 and a Who sone came on. Musically, they are good and I always enjoy their music.

But suddenly it seemed so immature and childish to be whining about "no one knows what it's like." Grow up and face the world. Your petty personal problems aren't worth singing about, aren't profound and take away from the important matters in the world.

Has any generation ever been so self-absorbed? I think that generation was coddled by people who had to endure the depression.

Simple, the music. Not just the Who, but Rock in general. It's just is too cool to young people. It was a unique development in music and cultural history. Rock music popular today is not much different than in the 60's. I don't know why, but despite all the other choices available over the last 50 years, it lives.

Of course no one should endure a depression (seems we're facing one soon, though). But children should not be coddled, either.

But we don't need to go there. We're talking about The Who and why they are still popular. I'm not sure that they are so popular. I think they are tolerated by younger kids. I think their message of whiny self-absorption is appealing to chldren who don't have a good perspective on life.

Actually, Pogo, yes, and specifically with someone who reminds me very of much of you. Already done it (OK, just every once in while, so far, but with increasing frequency) with someone who can drive me absolutely crazy but whom I also love profoundly. Time passes and one goes back to the roots (all definitions of those concepts being strictly personally subjective in nature, of course).

I am a little disgusted by some of the Superbowl acts, and the Who is I think the worst. Singing was off note by both Townshed and Daltry, both were jumping on the lead...just a mess.

I am more disgusted with the notion of the NFL and advertisers that good music is purely a function of brand recognition. So we get once great acts now in their decrepitude hired only because their fame based on the "good stuff" accumulated over decades, generations...

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had the best show by far, but when they played they were less than a decade from "Full Moon Fever" and other peak stuff they did. Not 40 years past and everyone original a codger on Social Security..

I'd hope that the people behind "the Big Show" will look harder for talent that can put on a hell of a show who are NOW in their creative and musical peak.

Right now, the trend seems to be to wait until the performers are in their mid-60s to sing the stuff that made them famous 30-40 years ago, and sing it badly.

Cedar, the last band I know of to reliably play in tune was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Since then, it's almost a requirement for trumpets, if there, to play out of tune. I cringe every time I hear Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire and those horrid trumpets that sound like junior high students.

Comparing The Who and the Stones' Superbowl appearances, The Who were much superior. The old guys wore jackets which hid their chicken wings whenever they extended their pallid, bony arms to point at the crowd, unlike the T-shirt wearing Mick Jagger who demonstrated the dreaded chicken-wing arm numerous times during his performance. GAAAKKKK. I love The Who, but I wish they would indeed, fade away.

On the other hand it must be a real rush to still get that kind of a crowd reaction when you're almost 70.

I detest football, but taped the whole show only so that I could watch The Who. True, they did not sound as they did, but who does after 40 years? I am appalled that even fans are badmouthing this super group! Can you sing like that at 35, let alone in your 60’s? Moreover the acoustics were not ideal. Give it a break! When you sing live, unusual things can happen to your voice! It was fabulous that they chose The Who so that many can be reminded of music the way it should be!

It is a sad irony that all of the Who's great songs celebrate youth at it most juiced phase. They are contractually obliged to go out there with their wigs and paunches in pee stained underwear and exclaim the energy of their generation....Sinatra had a number one hit in seven different decades. He was allowed to get old and sing songs appropriate to the griefs he moved through. The cracks in his voice reflected the damage that time inflicts on the most polished surface, and he used his limitations to good effect....The Who make their living celebrating who they used to be while their music mocks who they are. Keith Moon understood the music. The thing to do is die of an OD while you're still young enough to enjoy the simple pleasures of blowing up toilets with cherry bombs and driving a Cadillac into a swimming pool. Keith is fixed in his youth and glazed on the Grecian Urn: "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter". Roger Daltrey is a sad hybrid of Blake's Albion Unbound and the Portrait of Dorian Gray.

Two years ago, someone gave me a $600 ticket to see the Who at a relatively small venue in Atlantic City. Third row center. I could see the blue in Daltry's eyes. Yeah, I missed Entwistle, but Pino Palladino was no shabby fill in.

Daltry's voice was spot on clear that night, and he didn't look one day over 45, if that! He was in amazing physical shape. Pete...well, I guess you saw tonight. lol He looked every bit his age, and then some. BUT, oh my! When he started to play, who the hell cared what he looked like.

I still have an eight track of "My Generation", so, as you might imagine, this was a dream come true for me to see them live. I ticked this off my "Things To Do Before I Die" list.

Embarrassed to say that I sat down for just a little bit between the first and second encore for a rest that none of them got. Heck, it's exhausting playing air guitar with Pete Townsend!

it looks like I've been banned from volokh.com and had the comments I left there deleted

Don't worry, there are still quite a few blogs out there with comments you can link-whore in.

Orin Kerr is falsely giving the impression that he only deletes "uncivil" comments

Are you trying to give the false impression that you've ever made a civil post? For example, it is a gross violation of decent internet behavior to post off-topic comments just so you can link to your website. That's all you ever do. You're doing it right now, in fact.

Actually, in 1967, if they had hit on the concept of half-time entertainment that went beyond marching bands, they could very well have featured Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, who were popular 40 years earlier.

In fact, two of the early Super Bowls to feature performers were tributes to Armstrong and Ellington in the year after their deaths.

As an Gen Xer I am pretty much sick of you Boomers and your works, but the Who and Stones can stick around. I thought the concert was good - at the party I was at everyone from 7 to 70 could at least hum or nod along with some of the songs.

Plus "Won’t Get Fooled Again,” was voted best conservative rock song (the message, whether intended or not, and not the singers obviously).

The old Rocker wore his hair too long,wore his trouser cuffs too tight.Unfashionable to the end --- drank his ale too light.Death's head belt buckle --- yesterday's dreams ---the transport caf' prophet of doom.Ringing no change in his double-sewn seamsin his post-war-babe gloom.

I has the same thought about Louis Armstrong, as he was by far the most important artist of 1927. The difference he he had a #1 hit record in 1964! His biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!", went to #1 on the pop chart, making Armstrong (age 63) the oldest person to ever accomplish that feat. In the process, Armstrong dislodged The Beatles from the #1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs. It was the last jazz record to hit #1.

I watched it, but the time would have been better spent watching bits of "The Kids are Alright." (Release in 79, shortly after Moon's death.) In particular, that's the only place I know to see the performance of "A Quick One" from the The Rolling Stone's Rock & Roll Circus (shelved because the Stones were so bad). That has to be one of the best rock performances on film, every member of the band in excellent form. Moon at the top of his game.